from the defending-the-glue dept

Last week we reported on the Spanish newspaper publishers' association (AEDE) begging the Spanish government and EU to stop Google News shutting down as it realizes how much its members depend on Google for traffic to newspaper sites. To bring home just how stupid the new Spanish copyright law is, the online site Hipertextual.com is now calling for a boycott of all titles owned by AEDE (original in Spanish):

Are you too against the new copyright law and the AEDE tax on media and aggregators? The first step you can take right now is to begin a boycott of AEDE titles: don't visit them, don't link to them, don't give them traffic or relevance.

The Hipertextual.com article also recommends installing add-ons for the Chrome and Firefox browsers that automatically block all links to AEDE titles, and provides lists of international, national and regional alternatives.

Even if it is well supported, the boycott on its own probably wouldn't have much effect, but combined with the devastating loss of traffic that Google News closing will cause, it will certainly add to the pressure on the AEDE publishers. Just as importantly, it will also show that whatever the Spanish government may think, the country's new copyright law is not just about squeezing money from a rich US company, but also represents a serious threat to the basic glue that holds the Web together -- the hypertext link.

from the not-sustainable dept

Yesterday, we noted that it appeared that the "GoDaddy boycott" concept may have been losing steam, thanks to the company's decision to move away from supporting the bill... combined with a new aggressive advertising campaign. Finally, on Thursday morning, the company went a step further: saying it hadn't just stopped supporting SOPA but now directly opposed SOPA. Even though the company notes that it saw "a spike in domain name transfers," it looks like the actual "boycott" day fizzled out. Looking at the results from DailyChanges shows that GoDaddy actually had a strongly positive day, netting 20,748 more domains at the end of the day than the beginning. On transfers alone, there were nearly double the number of transfers in as out (27,843 in to 14,492 out) as well as more new registrations than deleted domains (43,304 new registrations compared to 35,907 deletions).

This isn't that surprising, really. There was a big burst last week, which is what resulted in GoDaddy changing its stance on the bills. In other words, it seemed like most people jumped to make the move immediately, rather than waiting a week. On top of that, GoDaddy's change in position very likely did ease the concerns of many. And, many made the quite reasonable argument that continuing the boycott after GoDaddy officially changed positions would be counterproductive, since it would discourage other companies from changing their position as well. Of course, a counter argument would be that the goal of the boycott was less about convincing others on the list to change positions as it was to make sure that no other companies decided to support SOPA or any similar future regulations.

Either way, it appears that for those who were hoping for a big boycott on Thursday, that didn't happen. I'm sure some SOPA supporters will use this as fodder to suggest the whole effort was a failure, but that's ridiculous. The whole thing still got a large company that was a huge supporter of these terrible bills to switch its position and recognize that it can't run roughshod over the wishes of its customers. It also helped draw more attention to the overall issue, and helped in getting other companies to back away from supporting the bill. It also got some attention among elected officials about how supporting this bill could get the internet activated. It may not be enough to kill the bills yet, but more politicians are aware of the issues. All in all, getting GoDaddy to change its position was a huge victory against SOPA and PIPA, but remains just one battle in a long and still ongoing war.

Update: There are a bunch of comments insisting that this can't be true, and I'm happy to see more data. NameCheap claims that it had 32,000 domains transfer in, and it's true that Daily Changes isn't a perfect proxy for domain transfers -- but it's a pretty good one. Some are suggesting that delays in processing will show more transfers over the next few days. We'll be watching. It's possible that there were a lot more transfers, but just because people want it to happen, doesn't mean it actually happened. Update 2: NameCheap says in the last week they've received around 80,000 transfers.

from the timing-is-everything dept

Well, today was the day originally scheduled as the GoDaddy boycott day, in which people who had registered domains with GoDaddy were going to transfer them out. With GoDaddy officially dropping support for SOPA, there have been some questions about whether or not that boycott will still happen in significant numbers. There have already been some high profile transfers, such as from the Imgur folks, and there are still plenty of people talking about going through with the boycott as planned.

However, GoDaddy seems to be focusing on what's worked for it in the past: advertising with scantily clad women (and Danica Patrick in particular). Apparently it's been putting full page ads in the NY Times (and other papers?) with Patrick covered strategically by a sign.

And... the strategy may have worked so far.

While tons of domains transferred out at the end of last week, this week has been a bit of a different story. On Monday, it looks like GoDaddy basically broke even, with 18,401 new registrations and 14,853 transfers in... vs only 8,862 transfers out and 24,120 domains deleted. That netted out to an increase for GoDaddy of 272 domains. Tuesday was even more positive for the company. Even though another 16,662 domains were transferred out and another 27,564 were deleted, there was a big bump in new registrations: 31,574 (perhaps driven by new ads?) and another 15,452 transferred in. Net change? 2,800 in the plus column for GoDaddy. Finally, that same trend continued for Wednesday: an impressive 33,251 new registrations and 17,549 transfers in. That goes against 15,524 transfers out and 30,634 deletions. Net: 4,642 more domains under GoDaddy control.

Left unanswered: is this a lull before a bunch of transfers today? Or has the whole boycott issue subsided?

I just got a call from #GoDaddy. The rep said he noticed that I'd transferred my 60+ domains away... and wanted to know if I'd tell them why. I got to tell them that it was because of their #SOPA support, and that I couldn't in good conscience give my money to a tech company that would support legislation like that. I told him I was aware that they had reversed their position, but that their explicit support of it in the first place had cost them my confidence in them, as it is at the best viciously ignorant, and at worst, malicious. The rep was quite sincere in his apology to me, asked if there was anything they could do to win me back. He had a "We support IP protections, and now realize that support of SOPA is too broad" song-and-dance routine that probably came in from a PR memo today. I told him "no thanks", and that was that. I'm impressed by the customer service hustle, but it shows that this little incident really spooked them.

It really makes me wonder if GoDaddy will ever be able to win back the confidence of many who joined this boycott. Perhaps not.

from the wow dept

As the public backlash continued to grow -- and GoDaddy's support of it seemed entirely tone deaf to what people were saying -- you knew something had to break eventually. GoDaddy has just announced that it no longer supports SOPA. From the press release they just sent, they say they'll only support future version of the bill if the internet community supports it too:

Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" currently working its way through U.S. Congress.

"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation -- but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."

Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.

"As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy," said Adelman.

In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.

"Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future," Jones said.

I would imagine that, for many, this will be too late, but as SOPA support continues to crumble, it's going to make it very difficult for Congress to claim that this bill really has much support out in the real world.

from the might-be-the-wrong-target dept

Some developers are trying to organize a developer boycott of iOS and Android offerings, getting them to pull their apps from the official marketplaces from both Apple and Google. At issue is that they feel Apple and Google haven't done enough to fight on their behalf against patent trolls Lodsys and Macrosolve. To be honest, I doubt this will be effective, nor does it seem properly targeted. Apple, for example, has been quite aggressive on Lodsys, seeking to intervene in Lodsys's lawsuits. And while Google was a bit slow and a bit more limited, it has also intervened. So I'm not entirely clear what more these developers want -- and I'm wondering how many developers will actually cut off their two biggest sources of distribution over this. These patent trolls are certainly a problem and it would be nice to see a strong and swift response from companies like Apple and Google, but it's not like the two have washed their hands of the situation and left developers totally hung out to dry.

from the nice-work,-Warner! dept

A bunch of folks have sent in an article from the latest issue of Wired Magazine about Warner Music's fight with the publishers of music video games, Rock Band and Guitar Hero. To be honest, the article doesn't cover much more ground than stories from last year, when Warner Music's Edgar Bronfman Jr. first demanded more money from the game publishers. But, it does include one juicy tidbit. After reposting Bronfman's silly quote demanding more money:

"In response, Rock Band publisher MTV Games is now boycotting Warner artists, according to a source close to the negotiations."

This is yet another example (in an increasingly long line) of how Warner Music's recent actions have done plenty to harm its artists. You may recall that a similarly ridiculous whine from Warner Music execs that YouTube wasn't paying enough money resulted in YouTube pulling all Warner Music videos from the site, pissing off many Warner Music artists. Other reports have noted that if musicians were blocked from getting their music in these video games, they might look to move to other labels as well.

And, of course, Warner Music's fight with the video game publishers is doubly stupid. Reports have shown that having your music in one of those games greatly increases sales of the music itself. So... the end result? Pissed off musicians who get less people hearing and interacting with and buying the music. It's amazing that Warner stays in business at all, with management foresight like that.